H&A International

Downtown Victorville, on 7^th Street, is where H&A International used to be.  The building is still there but a new business has moved in.  That’s a good thing.  Change in the way of the community coming back.  It’s a long way to go but it’s the right direction.  But this is not about that.  I like this #image – its symmetry, its balance that is really asymmetrical, the colors, the over saturation of the colors, the use of the negative space – I like this image because I’m not finished with it.  I thought I was but realize that I’m not.  Truth be told, I want to see more than what we see at the moment because more is going on that what is seen.  And this is #California – so very much California but not the California known by most.  There is so much to see.

Presidio of San Diego

Hello folks.  It’s San Diego!  Well, it’s the old Presidio of San Diego, actually.  I stumbled on it kind of by accident when we had our last family reunion/vacation kind of thing the summer before last.  I just thought the place was cool looking so I did a few shots of it.  After seeing the place, I wanted to do a photo shoot (and did do a photo shoot) there with a model.  But these are just a few shots the first time I saw the place.  And I always do a little Photoshop: light levels, contrast, lens correction, watermark, etc.  Enjoy.

Joshua Tree and Sky

Hey, Happy New Year!!  So, when should we stop wishing people “Happy New Year”?  Never.  I read somewhere that you should start each day with expectation.  So, let’s wish everyone a happy new year all of the time.  My expectation is that I photograph wonderful things all of the time.  This is one.  I took this photograph of a Joshua tree way back on Sep 2011 not far from my kids’ bus stop.  You’d never know that I was in the middle of Victorville.  Well, if you live here you might.  Just the same – it’s cool, huh?

Rainbow

I was working on Poohstock last time but did this shot with my cell phone – A Blackberry Torch.  Why do I plug the corporations?  Who knows because they definitely do pay me.  Anyway, we were riding from Lancaster back to Victorville when I spotted this rainbow southbound on 90^th East.  No, I was not texting and driving – I was drive-by shooting!  A technique I developed in Iraq in 2003/04.  No, not with my M16 – with my camera.  Just the same, cool rainbow.

Poohstock 2011, The Ride There

Last summer my brothers and I took a ride from southern California to southern Oregon.  We were going to our cousin’s event – Poohstock.  It was a lot of fun.  These are just some shot from my point and shoot of the trip up.  I did some Photoshop work on them a bit too.  Enjoy.

Gas Prices

Gas prices on June 16, 2011, in Fontana, CA, on Foothill Blvd – old route 66.  I was out and about with my PowerShot S5 IS and captured this for posterity sake.  Just thinking about the price of fuel is enough to make your head explode.  Don’t think so?  Have a look.

My pirates at the beach in Santa Monica

These photos are from the beach in Santa Monica using my test models.  They happen to be my children too.  I shot them on Veteran’s Day, 2010 – no school and nice weather.  We were at home and they had no idea about my plan – their questions become overwhelming so I always leave it a surprise.  I made them some lunch then, after they ate, I told them to get their shoes on because we’re going on a ride.  They suspect something is up but have no idea what.  My oldest is besides herself during the ride – she must know where we are going or she will die an agonizing death.  My youngest is just happy to be riding and singing songs that she makes up.  This is normal behavior for them.  When we made into LA proper, I let the cat out of the bag.  They were whooping and hollering them.  I even got a few choruses of “We’re going to the beach!”  Needless to say, they like going to the beach.

The first two photos I took with my BlackBerry Bold.  The other 20 I shot using my Canon PowerShot S5 IS.  22 photos, that’s a lot for me to put in a blog posting.  Oh well.

Victor Valley, CA

So I am driving around trying to scout out the area for photo shoots because I am new here.  Here being Victorville, CA.  I had been in Fontana for almost a year and just relocated to Victorville here in the VictorValley.  I had been driving around a few places, doing my ‘drive by shooting’ with my camera, when it occurs to me that the area was poised to blow up before the great economic meltdown of 2008 – The Great Recession as it is known in the financial world.  I say that because you can see signs of development that simply stopped.  So many places were in that predicament all over the country.  But why were people coming to Victor Valley in the first place?  The place gets crazy hot in the summer (it sits in the Mojave Desert) and crazy cold, with snow, in the winter.  In the winter, people do get “snowed in” up here when the CHP closes the Cajon Pass on I-15 – that means you are cut off from getting down below into San Bernardino/Riverside Metro and on to LA.  Well, you could always reverse direction and head to Vegas I guess.  But aside from being a place to stop and eat on your way to and from Las Vegas, why would people want to live out here?  I only came because it was cheap relative to many other areas in So Cal.  Nevertheless, the place was growing before the Great Recession.  Median house prices were above $350K back then.  I believe there is something more going on here than meets the eye.  Clearly, I am going to have to learn more.  But look for yourself:

I was out next to Mojave Narrows Regional Park on June 2 looking for interesting places to do a photo shoot.  Look at those mountains in the background.  California is full of impressive geography if you just pause to look.  I shot these with my Canon PowerShot A540 – still working my old faithful.

With my PowerShot A540 in hand on June 4, I was driving around way out in the far parts of Apple Valley (yeah, the “far parts”) and saw this abandoned place. Definitely, the ‘Hills Have Eyes’kind of stuff going on here. Oh, they filmed part of that movie out here. Makes you say hmm…

Yesterday, June 9, while driving to school (Cal State San Bernardino in North San Bernardino) on I-15, I observed how the smog was held at bay by the mountains as I drove through the Cajon Pass.  I know, what’s worse – texting and driving or shooting and driving?  It’s not as hard as it looks when you have a CanonPowerShot S5 IS with its “High-resolution 2.5-inch vari-angle LCD for easy shooting at any angle”.  Was that a plug or what?  They should hire me.

This last shot I took with the PowerShot S5 too.  I was just cruising the streets in Victorville hunting for places to shoot.  I just like how I caught the sun in this shot.  I shot this today, June 10, 2011.